


Forward

by cellorocket



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Romance, Smut, awkward teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 01:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2047335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellorocket/pseuds/cellorocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Gunther can react, Erd reaches across the table, and it takes him a moment to realize the blond boy means to shake his hand. Tentatively, he acquiesces – wary of touch, wary of hands, wary of the memories they inspire. But Erd’s touch is firm, buzzing with energy and passion. His hands are like his smile – quick and bright, a fast cut through his darkness.</p><p>“Now we’re not strangers anymore,” says Erd.</p><p>No, Gunther supposes they are not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Erd first remembers light – not the steady burn of sunshine, but a flash of conflagration in his family’s hearth. He watches the newspaper curl into ash, the words consumed by fire’s indiscriminate touch. Ella holds his hand, sniffling, and he squeezes her sticky fingers in a gesture he does not yet know to be comfort.

“Mama,” he says, and his voice does not tremble. “Where’s Papa?”

His mother says nothing for a long moment, and he can see her shoulders shaking. She reaches out to him. “Get away from the fireplace, my darlings.”

“Where’s Papa?”

She will not answer this question for many years, and by that time Erd has learned to put the answer far away, to forget it, to charge forward – always moving forward, so that it cannot touch him.

~

Gunther first remembers darkness, enveloping him so completely that it is almost like he no longer is a boy, but rather a figment of the unseen. And there—the thudding of passing feet beyond his safe haven, low voices traveling through the floors. His mother makes supper, his father takes a nap in his favorite chair. And Anika – a whirling terror of focus and intent, of dedication – she is searching.

He is hiding.

He bites his lip to contain the grin no one will see. He’s a good hider – quiet as a mouse, and possessed with some innate calm that allows him to go beyond the province of children and achieve utter stillness. Less a boy and more a boulder, a figment of steady earth.

It is many hours later when Gunther is roused from his hiding place by the sound of his sister’s tears – little hiccupping sobs replacing the sound of her rapid footsteps. Instantly, he leaves the closet of his safe darkness and steps into the light, blinks – too much, too much. But he finds her around the corner and takes her hand.

“Ani, Ani, don’t cry,” he says, squeezing her sticky fingers. In a gesture he does not yet know to be comfort. “Why are you crying?”

“I couldn’t f-find you,” Anika cries. “You were gone.”

“I was hiding,” Gunther explains. “I was just hiding.”

“I th-thought you were gone.”

“It’s okay,” he assures her. “You be the hider this time. And I’ll find you.”

It is not an evenly matched game they play. Gunther is a good hider, and an even better finder. He understands silence, and knows where to seek out its contrast. But Anika loses with grace – leaping from her place of darkness into his arms, giggling from the sheer joy of being found. And the games continue.

~

In his desire to move forward always, Erd accrues a following.

And it is not so unbelievable, that the children in his neighborhood would attach themselves to him. He is tall for his age and impossibly handsome, with chestnut brown eyes and a shock of sleek sunlight blond hair usually mused from his latest adventure. He always has a clever riposte at hand, which he uses delightedly – pleased that his passion should be so well received. He laughs loudly and often, and is possessed with no shortage of energy for harebrained schemes.

And there are many: petty thievery and excursions beyond the city walls, insurmountable trees and hills to be surmounted, treacherous rivers to be crossed, doubts to be conquered.

He is unimpressed with injury, and even less impressed with those who disbelieve his convictions. Ella often falls into this category, and it is no different today. Her pretty features twist in worry as he relays his desire to taste the veal Mr. Fredericks came by in a game of chance.

“He’ll know it went missing,” Ella says, biting her lip.

“He won’t be able to do anything about it,” Erd returns, grinning. “It’ll be in my stomach by then.”

“He’ll call the Garrison and you’ll be arrested.”

“How’s he going to prove anything, huh? Think about it, dummy. If it’s in my stomach, there’s no evidence. Since I’ll have eaten it. I’ll have tasted it.”

But Ella is not convinced, and it is then she commits the most unforgivable taboo. “I’m telling Mom what you’re planning.”

He lunges for her, but Ella is fast – even faster than him. She betrays him with none of the guilt found in the redeemable, and at first Erd is too angry for words. Before his mother sends him to his room, he glares at his sister, her smug sanctimonious face, so convinced of her rightness. “I hate you,” he snarls. “I wish you were dead.”

Ella cries, and he is sent to bed without dinner.

~

In his desire for peace, Gunther cultivates one relationship.

And it is not so unbelievable, that he would isolate himself in this way. He is quiet and a little odd. He is thoughtful. He is taller than most children his age, with dark skin and hair, dark eyes that have already achieved the oddly penetrating quality that will only increase as the years pass. While the other children run and play and scream with delight at their machinations, Gunther surrounds himself with the tactile pleasures of the world – the feel of grass under his bare feet, of sunshine on his face, a warm breeze ruffling his hair.

He is content to play with Anika, who alone understands him. When faced with the cruel whispers of the neighborhood children, she stands in front of her older brother with feet planted wide apart, hands on hips. She condemns them ferociously, passionately, calling them cowards and fools and other words that she should not yet really know the meanings for, and only when they leave does her posture relax.

“….You don’t have to do that,” Gunther tells her, embarrassed by the attention.

“No one is allowed to be mean to you,” Anika says stoutly. “Not while I’m around.”

And before he can react, she throws her arms around him.

 

~

Erd forgets.

Not important things, like his mother’s favorite song or Ella’s favorite flower, or their favorite stories. He forgets transgressions, offenses. He forgets his anger at Ella for being circumspect, for looking around instead of forward, constantly forward, like him. As he grows older, he realizes that this is a strength.

When he says something thoughtless, he is quick to apologize now. “I’m sorry,” he says, the words so common to him, and yet they are always sincere – spoken with a ring of truth that most in this world lack. “I’m sorry,” he tells Ella when he makes her cry, when he fouls a task, when he irritates with his constant energetic pursuit of horizons.

“Cram it with the sorries,” Ella says, crossing her arms over her chest. “You sound like one of those dumb birds.”

“Birds aren’t dumb!” Erd argues. He rather likes them, in fact.

“Yeah, they are. I’m talking about those dumb birds that just say the same things over and over again. They don’t even know what the words mean, they just repeat them because it gets them a treat.”

“I know what the words mean, though,” Erd says, a little hurt.

“Uh huh.”

“I do. And I’m sorry,” he says again, though Ella’s already rolling her eyes to hide how hurt she was. “I don’t want you to die, really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, dummy.” Erd grins. “Everything’d be so boring without you around.”

 

~

Gunther remembers.

He is running, chasing Anika. They’re playing a game, another game. The last game.

She shrieks with laughter, dancing along the edge of the ravine as he struggles to keep pace with her. “I’ll catch you!” he shouts, laughing too. And he will – he’s gaining on her. He sees his outstretched hand, fingers straining for the tail of her blouse as it flutters in the wind. Dark hair streaming behind, bright smile.

Remembers the smile faltering when she takes a wrong step, when her foot slides on the edge of the ravine, when her balance shifts backward – and the smile becomes a gasp of shock, and he’s reaching for her, straining desperately now, I’ll catch you--!

But she falls.

He hears the crack. Blinks. There she is, crumpled at the bottom of the ravine, dark hair spilling over her face. He slides down after her, fingers trenching through the dirt so that he doesn’t lose his balance and fall himself. But he believes, for a moment, that she is okay – that she’ll pick herself up and hold her head a little, biting her lip to keep from crying. And he’ll carry her home and wrap her in her favorite blanket, and maybe read her favorite story so she forgets the fear of the fall. He believes, for a moment, that everything is okay.

And that’s when sees it; pooling crimson in the dry dirt of the ravine. He crawls to her on his hands and knees, turns her over, holds her face. Blood on his hands. When he pushes away from the stone, he sees bits of hair and blood left behind, and there is a crumbling hole where once was unbroken skin and bone, and –

\--the world whittles down to this singular, silent point.

I’ll catch you, he’d said.

~

Erd leaves home as a teenager, full of piss and vinegar, and far too much reckless idealism than is healthy in a person. “I’m gonna join the Scouting Legion,” he tells anyone who will listen, and it becomes a mantra by the time the carts arrive. Ella tells him she can’t wait to see the back of his head, because it means that she won’t have to listen to him mouthing off all hours of the day. But she cries when the carts pull forward, (constantly forward). And he waves until he can’t see her anymore.

~

Gunther leaves home as a catatonic child. Or rather, home leaves him.

“It’s just for a little while,” his father tells him in a grey, quiet voice. “Your grandparents can’t wait to see you.”

Gunther doesn’t know about this, but says nothing. He hasn’t spoken a word since it happened – since that night when the search party found him in that ravine, rocking Anika’s cold body. He does not say goodbye to his parents when they pack him away like a parcel, shipping him off to Karanese. He doesn’t say a word to greet his grandparents, even though they do so warmly, folding him into their shared embrace. He does not speak, but he does cry.

Yet in his grandparents’ care, he comes back to life. Slowly, as he does most things; thoughtfully. It is many months before he speaks, but he does so to tell his grandmother ‘I love you.’ To listen when grandfather teaches birdcalls, when he rests his hand on Gunther’s head and calls him spatzi, And that is their life together, he and his grandparents. A bit of peace and love, when Gunther did not believe he’d ever deserve such a thing again.

It is because of his grandparents that he considers the military. That he thinks about the Titans beyond the Walls, thinks about them patrolling the lands that people once inhabited, thinks about a world where it is common for little girls to die in a horrible way. Thinks about doing whatever he can to keep this from happening.

Thinks about the blood on his hands, that no amount of love will cleanse.

Gunther joins because he looks behind, at Anika’s face. How she’d been in the ravine, and how she’d been the moment before – smiling.

~

Erd sees him in the mess line. Dark and quiet. A head taller than the rest of the boys in line. Had he been wearing any other expression he might have been scary, but instead he wears one of thoughtful attentiveness, and whatever natural menace his massive form might encourage is subverted. He is scanning the room for details, Erd sees – studying their new comrades with no judgment, only interest that manages to contain a great deal of reserve. He is a study in contrasts, this dark stranger.

But it is his eyes that capture Erd. They are a lake of unimaginable depth, which is only concealed by the stillness of the water above. Those eyes lock with his, and Erd feels himself flushing.

But Erd is not a coward. He moves forward, always forward. Constantly forward. He marches to the dark stranger’s table and decisively sets his tray down, inadvertently making the boy jump.

“Sorry about that,” Erd says with an easy grin. “Mind if I eat with you?”

“…no. I don’t.”

“Thanks, stranger.” Erd has to work to still his jumpy hands, his bouncing knees. He is energy and motion, even more so in the presence of this still and silent stranger. It is if they are opposite compounds, and their natures are thrown into stark definition by proximity. Not that any of this occurs to Erd; he only know that he is fascinated without really understanding why.

“It’s nothing,” says the stranger, taking a small bite of his breakfast.

“Hey, hey. You telling me what I think you’re telling me?”

The stranger looks up. “…what?”

“You telling me that you’d just prefer we stay strangers? Not even gonna ask me my name?” Erd tries to wrestle his teasing grin into submission, but it’s a failed effort. He’s too excited.

“No, I didn’t mean that,” says the stranger, contrite.

“Well, good. Now, if we’re not going to be strangers, we should know each other’s names, don’t you think?”

There is silence from the stranger as he mulls it over. “All right.”

And he can’t help it – his grin widens. “All right. I’m Erd Gin.”

Silence as the stranger digests his name, working it over, committing it to himself. Erd’s never seen this reaction to his name before, but there is something fascinating about it, something inexplicably endearing – as if to this stranger sharing a name is sharing a piece of himself. Finally, the stranger speaks: “Gunther Shulz.”

And Erd commits this too, in just the same way. He throws himself headfirst into knowing this person, though suddenly he feels odd and shy, and more than a little unbalanced. He moves forward, ever forward, constantly forward.

~

Before Gunther can react, Erd reaches across the table, and it takes him a moment to realize the blond boy means to shake his hand. Tentatively, he acquiesces – wary of touch, wary of hands, wary of the memories they inspire. But Erd’s touch is firm, buzzing with energy and passion. His hands are like his smile – quick and bright, a fast cut through his darkness.

“Now we’re not strangers anymore,” says Erd.

No, Gunther supposes they are not.

 


	2. Chapter 2

It had not taken Erd long to become infatuated.

He is a person of deep passion, a person who does not wonder long what is in his heart, or what he finds beautiful and true; these things are obvious to him, and he doesn't understand those who require long periods of soul searching to know themselves in this way. It is a gift in most cases, but as the weeks and months had lengthened into years, he begins to wonder if it is not actually a curse.

But how could he not?

In those first days, Erd absorbed every detail he could glean greedily, as a starved man consumes his first meal after the end of his unwanted fast. He learns about Gunther -- learns that he is quiet and a bit insecure, that his size belies a tender sensibility, that his smiles are slow to come but well won and well worth the effort.

He looks at his friend, that odd friend he made the moment they first saw each other in the mess hall, and wonders how his life would have been if he'd passed the compelling stranger by, gravitating instead toward his usual preferences in company; the bright, the similarly outgoing. Gunther is reticent for reasons that Erd still does not yet understand, but for the first time in his life -- miraculously, it would seem -- he is patient.  He already can't imagine life without Gunther Shulz.

He and Gunther share a top double bunk, an arrangement that Erd suggested the first day, and one that Gunther accepted with his usual reserve. And at first it had been a fine agreement -- Gunther was the first person he saw in the morning and the last he saw at night, and in all those moments in between they were together, Erd often with his arm slung around his confounding, fascinating friend's shoulder, laughing about something unimportant. But lately, as his infatuation grows into something more unwieldy, the arrangement loses its charm and begins to torment.

It’s that moment before something happens -- those days, anyway. Where every little thing is a feast. The tiniest details sustain you.

So the way Gunther rubs his chin sometimes when he's feeling insecure, the flat of his thumb right at the angle of the bone, brushing his lip just slightly. Erd thinks about it for days. Thinks about doing it with his own hand - brushing his thumb against Gunther's lip. And as the image mounts, he has to bury his face in the pillow and lie on his stomach because he just _aches._

The smallest little detail, and he's bound.

It's so easy to see where it begins for Erd. It began in that moment they first saw each other -- that contrast between this massive, slightly terrifying boy and the almost gentle way he comports himself. How thoughtful he is, observant. Achingly, beautifully tactile about his world. They hang in harnesses on their second day, and Gunther balances perfectly, still as a deer that's caught a faint sound at the edge of a copse of trees.

It’s effortless. He is watching, listening stillness bound by bone and flesh. And for someone who is as almost compulsively active as Erd, it’s fascinating.

And the more he learns about him, the more fascinating he finds his character -- how easily that thoughtfulness gives way to insecurity when faced with the sum of his peers, and the difference he knows exists between them.

“Why do you want to be like them anyway," he says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear. Jumpy hands, nervous heart.

“I don't know that I do,” says Gunther. 'But I would like to be at least tolerated. Maybe even accepted.'

Erd doesn't know what to say to this. _He_ accepts Gunther, he cherishes Gunther, he adores Gunther more deeply than he's adored anything, but he is one person and their peers are a wall of disdain, with their faces turned away. He would give Gunther their acceptance if it was his to give.

“Ah, come on," he manages after a while. "You know I'll always tolerate you.”

 _You know I’ll always love you,_ he thinks.

Gunther smiles. Maybe he can't read Erd's mind, but he hears the joke. Knows the understatement. He's secure in that much. ''You're a good friend,' Gunther says, and Erd should be happy -- should be ecstatic. They are good friends, and they will always be, but the greedy thorn of his heart wants more, needs more, needs it like air and sunlight.

~

Erd's always had enough to eat, even during hard times, they were never that hard. But for the first time he knows the scrape of hunger in his gut, in his groin, this stalwart ache in his chest that does not abate or ease but only increases as time goes on.

“You're a good friend,” Gunther says sincerely -- when Erd claps him on the shoulder (and here, another scrap that will sustain him; the feel of the dip between Gunther's shoulder blades).

And it should be enough. It should sate this hunger; it would if he was in his right mind. But there is no reasoning with this ache, and it only grows, heedless of any attempts to manage it.

“You're a good friend,” Gunther says, and every time it's a blade through the chest. Plucks the ache like a violin string -- the resonance colors Erd's dreams and waking thoughts alike.

Scraps from the table: Gunther's low, earnest laughter when something breaks through his natural reserve long enough for joy to register, when the defenses come down -- a wall made of clay, crumbling into the sea. And the light in his eyes when he looks at Erd, or when he looks at the sky, at a pair of wheeling birds as they spiral higher and higher, caught in each other's pull.

Scraps: The day of their last test before 2nd interim, and the scores posted in the mess hall. Gunther cranes above the rest of the class and picks out his name, and another smile blooms across his features, though in this one there is joy and the slightest pride, mingled sweetly.

"You got an eight," he says, and rests his hand on Erd's shoulder. The touch is a cascade of fire, electrifying.

Erd shivers, and for the slightest moment, leans into that touch. He's starving, you see, and desperate for scraps. “Of course I did," he says with a grin. "You got an eight too."

And this is what captures him, more than anything; that Gunther had looked for Erd's name first, that the pride on his face had more to do with Erd than his own score. That when presented with hard proof of his skill, he did not boast or accept, but ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders, just slightly. As if an ostentatious movement would draw too much attention.

He's starving, slowly starving; he needs more than he's needed anything in his short, loud life. He's all flash and fire, drawing those captivated by assurance and the cocky quirk of a grin like moths to flame. He's accustomed to abundance. He's never known hunger.

And now he knows nothing else. He's starving, slowly starving. Their third year dawns, and Erd has starved for so long that he thinks he must be on the verge of disappearance. He looks at himself in the mirror and marvels that there is still flesh to him, lean corded muscle on his lithe frame.

No, of course he isn't starving. Pinches the flesh at his hip. Prods his cheeks, which are indeed a bit hollow. He's being dramatic. Ella would laugh at him. He'd deserve it.

And that's how it is, for Erd. For so long.

 

~

He heard a story once about a man, crawling through a sea made entirely of sand, blistering as the surface of the sun. He thirsted desperately. He saw shadows and shapes where there were none. Mirages, the trader had called them -- and Erd had found the word fascinating, rolling it around on his tongue, testing its weight. A word for a sight that did not exist.

Erd is sustained by a mirage. At night, he faces Gunther and watches the shape of him breathe, his strong shoulders hitching gently as he dreams. And so too does Erd dream -- of a night where Gunther will turn to face him, where he will take Erd's shoulders in his wide, strong hands and hold him -- not as he's done before, gently in friendship, but fiercely, in need.

In mutual need.

This is Erd's mirage: Gunther behind him with his breath hot on Erd's ear. His hands trembling as they trace risen, live flesh, as they need. His hands as they grasp his erection from behind, as they stroke in tandem with his deliberate thrusts.

 _Faster_ , Erd moans, but Gunther is deliberate. Gunther drives deeply, plumps depths instead of skittering quickly along the surface. He is no flash of fire in the pan. 

And later, when the pace quickens just enough to drive him to madness, to capture them both in its pull, he will whisper in Erd's ear. _I love you_ , he moans, breath hitching around his pleasure, and Erd arches back into him; into his pace and into the words. _I love you ..._

And Erd lurches awake with a gasp. Shivers on the edge of that shameful pleasure, its last spasms staining his pants until his thighs are slick with come. It's the dead of night. Snores fill the barracks, and still Gunther sleeps -- his wide shoulders gently lifting and falling as he breathes. Unaware of his good friend dropping to the ground and rummaging through his belongings for clean clothes.

 

~

As with all things, it is slow. 

For Gunther, it is slow. A gradual change -- steady alchemy. A series of realizations that occur one after another in stately procession. He is not swept away, because he is not capable of being swept away -- his feet are rooted firmly, because that is good and safe. Because that is the nature of steady things.

But this is not pitiable -- he lacks the quick flash of passion, but in this regard his love runs deeply, rooted to the earth. And it is irrevocable, unchangeable.

He does not know the feel of a whim.

It starts, in some small, nearly imperceptible way, the day Erd holds out his thin hand for Gunther to shake. The day he fixes him with a bright grin, eyes crinkling under the weight of his joy.

It's the earnestness in which Erd accepts Gunther, and the ease in which he relates, that captures Gunther's reserved curiosity. The feel of his hand -- warm, as if he'd cupped a flame before gripping Gunther's cold fingers, and that warmth slowly travelling up Gunther's arm, to settle somewhere in his chest.

It is a small beginning. A seed, pressed firmly into winter-touched soil. It will grow.

 

~

 

And _how_ it grows. Slowly, as things do with Gunther, but steadily. In those early days, it grows without Gunther's awareness, because he lacks awareness in these matters, and lacks the regard for himself to believe something so fanciful. It doesn't occur to him. It won't yet for a while. 

But he wonders about his friend -- who is bright and talented, who attracts all manner of interesting people to his side, eager for his laughter and his smile, but eschews their company for Gunther's instead.

It grows: when the trainees receive word of Shiganshina's fall, and word arrives that his parents will not and never will. When his steadiness is shaken and grief threatens to bring him down, Erd lets him grieve. He does not turn away his face, as others do.

Gunther sits with his hands fisted in his hair, pushing it down, forever down. There is room enough for this grief too, so that no one will have to see its ugliness. He will bear it. But Erd -- his unlikely, miracle friend, takes a seat beside Gunther and throws his arm around his shoulder.

'You can be sad about it," Erd tells him quietly. "I'm not gonna run away."

And Gunther -- he doesn't rage and sob and tear out his hair, gnash his teeth like the zealots do in their performances. But he leans his head against Erd's shoulder and takes shuddering breaths as the grief rises and crests, a storm tossed wave. And Erd does not shrink away when it becomes difficult and embarrassing-- when a keen escapes between Gunther's clenched teeth, a sound only an animal would make.

He only holds Gunther more tightly. His arm shakes, and Gunther sees -- in that haze of feeling -- his own pain mirrored on Erd's face.

"You're a good friend," Gunther says later, when he can speak again, the words huffing tremulously as the storm abates and he calms. He steadies. He is steady. “You're -- you're a good friend," and the tone is one of surprise.

"You've got kind of a low bar for friendship," Erd jokes. "I just sat here, told you that you could cry."

"Don't do that," Gunther says quietly. "You know it was more than that."

And after a while Erd nods. "Yeah, alright." he swallows, his throat working around a particularly difficult thought, and Gunther waits -- steady, patient. He knows Erd will get around to it in the end. ''I'll always be around, if you need this again. I mean it, okay?"

And Gunther nods. He doesn't quite understand it, but he believes. He trusts it, and trusts Erd.

With his life.

 

~

 

On one such simple day, Erd gets a package from his mother and sister, and Gunther gets one from his grandparents, and they compare letters. Erd snickers at his sister's cramped self-conscious handwriting and the similarly self-conscious way she comports herself around the florist that has caught her attention.

“Listen to her talk about this guy," Erd says, brandishing the letter under Gunther's nose. '' _'You wouldn't think a florist would know anything about how to talk to women, but the things he says ...'_ She's lost her mind; a guy gets a job as a florist because it gives him a chance to flirt, and she fell for it." Only then does Erd's grin waver.

''He could be a florist because he likes flowers," Gunther says reasonably. "I might have done something like that if I hadn't joined the military."

"Are you serious?! You, a florist?"

Gunther's head cocks slightly -- as he often does when he found something curious. "What's so unbelievable about that?"

"It's unbelievable because you're not a flirt whatsoever. You're so earnest it gives me heartburn."

"If you have heartburn you should go to the infirmary instead of blaming it on my once prospective career choices."

But Erd laughs, as _he_ often does. ''I'm just having a great time picturing you as a florist,' he says, rubbing his thin chest. ''With a little flower tucked behind your ear. Wearing a cute little apron. Wooing the women." His grin falters for a half second before resurfacing with too much verve. “You'd have all the ladies fawning after you."

"I doubt it,” Gunther says.  “I scare most of them. I scare most people. You're the only one that really talks to me.”

''That's their loss, remember," Erd says, no longer grinning. "And anyway, if it's not to flirt with women, why the hell would you want to sell flowers?"

'Because I like flowers," Gunther say. "I like the way they smell -- not just the flower smells, but the way the earth smells too. The way it feels when you stick your hands in it. And they're very particular -- they only flourish in the most specific conditions. Too much water, they drown, not enough and they starve. But if you're careful and steady, and if you treat them just right, they grow, and they're beautiful.

"And not only that, but they make people happy. A man brings home flowers to his wife, and she smiles for the rest of the night. She knows that he’d been thinking of her, and it makes her feel loved. A good friend gives another flowers after a loss, and it brightens up his home. People see them and they smile. I like that. I'd have wanted to do something like that if I hadn’t decided to do this."

Erd stares for a moment too long, and Gunther doesn't recognize the look in his eyes, only knows that it travels through him like that first handshake, travels through his slow, steady body to settle somewhere in his chest.

"I always knew you were weird," Erd says finally, clapping Gunther on the shoulder. And the way he says it, Gunther knows it's an endearment. The warmth grows, takes a new shape. Turns its face to the light.

 

~

 

And it grows: on the days that Gunther finds himself noticing details that transcend the sum he had for so long taken for granted. The narrow angle of Erd's shoulders, and the lean band of muscle at his stomach, glimpsed when he yawns and stretches, and his shirt rides halfway up his chest.

The pale hairs that thread downward, disappearing below the waist of his pants.

"What's wrong?" Erd asks when he notices Gunther’s stare, brows furrowed in concern.

Gunther feels the heat rise in his cheeks, like a slow flame. He can't meet Erd's gaze. "It's hot in here."

Erd grins. ''Can't handle the heat, huh? Are you a delicate, wilting flower?"

''I guess," Gunther says, pushing scraps of dinner around his plate. Making them chase one another. Feels his heart race, as if he is too being pursued.

 

~

 

It grows, and Gunther does not know what to make of it.

He is steady. He keeps himself steady partly because it's his nature to stand firm while life rushes around him, while it jostles and jolts and shoves at him with rough hands, but partly out of necessity. He has lost, and he knows intimately how easily something can disappear the moment you think you're both safe. 

_I'll catch you ..._

He keeps himself steady as a precaution. Because it is easier. Because rushing ahead blindly into life and hurt makes no sense to him, and he doesn't suspect that it ever will.

But here he is, defying sense in his small steady way. Watching his friend, his _good_ friend, and noticing these things that curl like heat in his gut, and once, last night, in his groin.

And it grows beyond Gunther's ability to control the night Erd says his name.

 

~

 

For once, he is not sleeping. He watches shadows play on the ceiling, inching closer to his bunk as the moon rises. Trees rustle in the slight wind, and in the distance he can hear the doleful hooting of an owl.

For once, he's unsettled.

He'd long since lost the illusion of steadiness in the world, knowing intimately that only air could meet your feet where you thought there would be solid ground, but he's always taken for granted his own steadiness. He knows things, sees things. He is slow to change and slow to react, slow to feel anything. And it's a comfort.

But now -- his _good_ _friend_ takes the shape or something else, and he is afraid. He doesn't know where to step, where to put his feet, where to be. He doesn't know what to say or think. He doesn't know anything.

Erd tosses and turns in his sleep, murmuring shapeless sounds -- impulses that curl on the edge of his dream. His breathing hitches, becomes a gasp. He is unsettled, Gunther thinks, suddenly afraid for his friend, when --

"Gunther," Erd whispers. Moans, almost -- his voice pitching higher on the breath, gathering sound by slow, shuddering increments.

And Gunther freezes.

He rationalizes, because it is what's steady, in this situation. There is an explanation for everything, a sound reason to stand on. He looks at his friend, at those pale brows furrowed over his eyes, at his lips parted just slightly, and thinks rationally to himself that this must be a nightmare. That Erd is dreaming of something terrible, and as a good friend it is Gunther's duty to arouse him from his torment.

 _It's not a nightmare ..._ some abstract voice in Gunther's mind whispers. _He doesn't fear for you, at least not in this dream._

Gunther swallows, pushes the voice away. Of course its a nightmare. What else could it be?

 _What else, indeed …_ says the voice.

Because it’s a nightmare, and because Gunther is a good friend, he reaches out and takes Erd's shoulders. (And they're almost small boned under his too-massive fingers, and the detail stuns Gunther in a way he had not expected).

“Erd,” he whispers. “Erd, please. Wake up."

"Gunther ..." Erd moans again.

And the way Erd says his name, the way he holds it tightly, even in sleep, the way the syllables intertwine, almost as lovers do. Gunther's hands tremble but he does not let go. He is desperate in a way he doesn't understand, knowing the longer Erd lingers in this dream, the further ahead they will catapult, and Gunther fears this. He fears it. He is steady.

He _needs_ to be steady.

He inches closer, until their faces are only a breath apart. Until another odd impulse arises in him, one that he's never had to contend with or even acknowledge -- he is now close enough that he could simply lean down and press his lips to Erd's.

And he knows they'd be warm, they’d contain the warmth of that handshake on his first day, and that warmth would spread through him; from lips to chest, spreading through his limbs, coiling sinuously in his groin.

"Erd, _please,”_ he begs. “Wake up.”

And finally, Erd does -- he shudders awake, blinking once before his chestnut gaze focuses on Gunther. The confusion there quickly gives way to horror, and for a moment Gunther thinks that he was right and the nagging voice was wrong -- this was a nightmare, and Erd is still caught in its grip.

"It's alright," Gunther whispers, so softly that his voice is nearly lost by the sounds of the night.

“I-- shit --" Erd mutters, inching back, angling his hips away.

At first Gunther doesn't understand. He shifts his gaze down impulsively, foolishly, and that's when he sees the telltale stiffness between Erd's legs, pressing against his trousers. Heart stuttering, he averts his eyes, but he's seen. He will never be able to unsee, and as he considers, as realization sinks into his steady seeking bones, he doesn't want to.

'Shit," Erd says again, stuffing a hand down his pants and arranging himself so that his need is no longer so obvious. "I'm -- shit, it's not -- shit. _Shit!”_

Gunther can't breathe. Thoughts clunk slowly to life in his concussed brain, and as they do a few concrete facts become apparent; Erd had been dreaming of him, he'd moaned his name -- not from fear, but from need.

The evidence of his need, hard between his legs.

Heat rushes to Gunter's face. He processes this slowly, and his response even more slowly. Erd is still muttering _shit_ to himself and pressing the heels of his hands in his eyes when Gunther speaks. "Why do you keep saying shit?"

Erd turns to look at him. "I -- fuck, I just  -- it wasn't anything, it’s not like I'm -- I'm not a pervert, I was just -- it's not about you, I just --"

“You said my name," Gunther says.

 “Shit ... “ Erd moans. “Just ... shit. I'm sorry. shit, I'm –“

 'Stop saying shit,” Gunther admonishes gently.

His words finally give Erd pause, and he studies Gunther's face with wide, questioning eyes, as if he cannot reconcile the shape of him when not clothed by the dream. And they don't move, or speak, or even breathe. Erd waits, and Gunther thinks.

He is possessed with a heady measure of realization.

That Erd, his _good friend_ , moans his name and holds the image of him close, hungers in dreams and daylight alike. That he looks at Gunther now with confusion and desperation and self -loathing, and that is what Gunther cannot stand; that Erd would punish himself for something that is, at this point, and perhaps always has been, so, so mutual.

Slowly, as he does all things, Gunther lifts his hand and cups Erd's face, lightly as a sigh, as a breath of wind. Notices that it trembles slightly, and it can't be helped. He is not steady earth; he is a boy, steeped in feeling.

Erd swallows hard; Gunther sees his throat working, as slats of pale moonlight spill across his bare chest. "What -- are you doing?" he breathes, too quiet. The quiet of a trespasser, convinced he will startle the moment, and it will flee before he can keep it.

Gunther answers him with a slow, deliberate kiss.

And he is a boy steeped in feeling, not a figment of steady earth, so he feels the kiss just as he'd known he would; curling in his chest, spreading slowly through him like gentle heat, like the embrace of sunlight on a summer afternoon.

A half-made sound catches at the back of Erd's throat, and he lifts trembling hands to Gunther's shoulders, gripping tightly as if he fears he will be lost the moment he lets go. 

And this is how Gunther knows Erd has needed this -- because he knows his friend, this boy that is more than his friend. Every sound and motion is in a language with which he thankfully achieved fluency.

He is a boy and he doesn't know anything; he's never kissed anyone before, not like this. He hardly knows the topography of his own desire, only that it moves slowly through him, and leaves him irrevocably changed. He doesn't know anything, but he deepens the kiss when Erd's lips part against his, when his shaking fingers grip the waist of Gunther's pants, nervously brushing his belly with such shaking tenderness that Gunther gasps.

“Are you--?" Erd whispers, fearful again.

Gunther nods, swallows. "I--it just startled me."

"I'll stop," Erd says quickly.

But this time, Gunther catches him before he can wiggle away. Gently, lacing his fingers between Erd's, savoring the feel of them, the slender skin and bone pressed flush to his own solid digits. With great resolve, he releases a trembling breath that billows between them, heats this risen, miracle space.

"Please don't,” Gunther whispers.

So Erd does not.

He draws close, until they are pressed chest to chest. Legs entwine. Erd's hair, spilled loose on the pillow, brushing his brow. And the stiffness between his legs pressed hard against Gunther's thigh. He feels himself responding in a way he had never considered, but now that he is caught in its grasp he cannot stop, _will_ not stop. He needs it now, too; in his slow, unchangeable way.

It’s often like this, between them, in simpler pursuits. Erd is passionate, flesh bound fire, often in transports of glee and fascination over some small thing, and Gunther finds himself easily borne along. And he is borne along now, when Erd leans close and captures Gunther's lips, forcing open his mouth and exploring with his tongue -- somehow both eager and tentative.

His hands trace over whatever part of Gunther they can reach; his chest, sliding quickly down to his waist, and when Gunther shivers at the ticklish touch, he can feel a puff of Erd's silent laughter against his cheek.

“Never gets old," Erd says, breathless.

Gunther can't speak, because at that moment Erd's hands slip into his pants and cup the flat plane of his hip, and the sensation is so visceral that the world shivers around them, snapping close, until there is nothing but the two of them entwined passionately in their bunk.

For all of Erd's desperate fervor, it is Gunther who breaches his hesitance first. With the steady knowledge that this will be alright, and it will make him feel good, he gently peels away Erd's trousers until his erection springs free.

Erd makes a strangled sound. "What are you --?"

Gunther pauses. "I thought ..."

Silence. Erd's breathing hard, and Gunther's heart pounds desperately against his ribs. He wonders for a brief second if he miscalculated, and the thought fills him with shame. The familiar insecurity wells in his gut, and he unconsciously draws away.

Erd swallows again. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I-- I do ... I just thought -- I mean --"

'"I do too," Gunther says.

Erd pauses for one shivering second, then his lips crash against Gunther's with passion that the larger boy had not yet tasted. Now that he has, however, he cannot think of a day when he doesn't know it, when it doesn't exist in his life in some form. And he may not always be able to meet it, but he will welcome it. He won't turn it away.

They kiss and slowly, carefully, Gunther's fingers curl around Erd's cock. Erd's lips part, and he makes another half-sound against Gunther's mouth, and already Gunther knows this to be a plea forward. Always forward.

He obliges, stroking once.

"Gunther ..." Erd moans brokenly, muffling himself against his neck. " _Gunther_ ..."

He absorbs detail, because he is at his best when taking in the world through his hands and his eyes, piecing it together so that he may one day be able to understand it. And now, at this moment in their bunk, Erd is the world entire. He drinks in the way Erd shudders in his hands when the stroke registers just right, and cherishes the tone on Erd's voice -- plaintive, desperate, needful. He learns the topography of Erd's cock, so different from his own -- thinner and long, but with a lush head, the underside of its ridge tender as new skin.

When Gunther lets his thumb graze that spot, the answering moan that comes between Erd's parted lips resonates in some deep place in Gunther's gut, curling into the shape of mutual arousal. And Gunther is hard himself, desperate in a way he has never been, desperate in a way that is almost painful.

"I'm --I--" Erd gasps. "Sh-shit..."

Before Gunther can do or say anything, Erd slides his hand in Gunther's trousers and grips his cock, and the shock of this touch forces an answering gasp from between clenched teeth.

"Erd --?"

"I-- let me," he pleads, pressing the words into the corner of Gunther's mouth. "I want to make you feel good."

The words make him dizzy, but Gunther responds because the truth is important, and Erd doubly so. "You already do that.”

“God,” Erd says, shaking his head. “You -- you just –“

'What?"

"You -- I just -- "

Gunther is not accustomed to this -- his friend with the quicksilver tongue, stammering over his words like he himself often does. "It's the truth," Gunther enforces quietly. 

Erd seems to cross some internal threshold in that moment, for he says no more, his grip slowly sliding up Gunther's length before reversing, and oh -- the pleasure is exquisite. Better than his own hand, better by virtue of Erd as he does so, his quick hands that move when he talks and laughs, that dance to the shape of his words.

"O-oh," Gunther sighs, his head dipping forward to rest against Erd's shoulder. Savors the Erd's breath against his ear, his hand around Gunther's cock, and the deft stroke of his hands. God, those hands.

Somehow, he finds himself enough to resume his own ministrations to Erd, and there they lie -- twined together, stroking in slow, shuddering tandem. Gasping and whimpering as quietly as they possibly can, so as not to wake their classmates.

His breath is hitching. He feels the familiar tightness in his groin, the shivering that descends his spine like steps of a ladder, and he clutches Erd's shoulder frantically, burying his face against Erd's neck. "A-ah ..." And he feels it too; Erd's gasps against his own neck, his need growing past the point of return. His cock pulses in his grip, and he's never felt such a thing in his life, nor does he think he ever will.

"Gunther ..." Erd says, just as he had in the throes of his dream. And Gunther teeters on the edge only briefly, breathlessly, before plummeting.

But this is a kind ridge from which to fall. There are no rocks below.

He shudders in Erd's arms, pleasure pulsing through him in steady, increasing waves, bearing him powerfully along. He sees a flash of Erd's lips through hooded eyes, feels the answering pulse in the palm of his hand as Erd nears that same precipice, and --

He comes as he never has in his life.

Gunther gasps for breath, but he does not stop. The familiar haze settles in his limbs, warring with this need that he does not understand, one that is not connected to his own arousal. One that is instead bound to Erd. He will not stop until Erd has release. 

"G-Gunther ..." Erd breathes in a shuddering exhale, swiping the sticky come off his stomach with a spare shirt. "I'm --" 

"Yes ..." Gunther says against his mouth. "Please, yes."

And Erd is not accustomed to being asked, or begged, or being needed in such a way. Gunther can sense it in the widening of his eyes, and the shivering breath that answers. He is climbing higher now, soaring to such a height that for a moment Gunther wonders if he will ever come down. 

And the stroke increases. He's careful to keep the bed from shaking, but Erd trembles desperately, one hand fisting hard in Gunther's hair, so hard that he nearly tears it out by the roots. It does not register as pain, however; instead the gesture is almost comforting. 

"Yes ..." Gunther urges him, stroking faster.

Erd throws back his head, his eyes clenched shut. Trembles, then curls against Gunther again with desperation that Gunther had not yet seen from him. He wonders if he'd hurt Erd when -- 

He shudders, cock pulsing in Gunther's hand, and grips his shoulder hard enough to hurt. From between his parted lips come three words, gasped in the throes of pleasure and need. "I l-love you," Erd moans against Gunther's neck, pressing the words there like a brand. " _I l-love you!!_ " 

He shudders again, and Gunther feels the warmth of come splatter against his belly. 

They say nothing, and for a long moment the only thing between them is the sound of their heavy breathing, hitched hard in pleasure, slowly winding down. Gunther watches Erd -- the flush in his face, and the crumpling of his expression as he realizes what he blurted in the moment of his orgasm. 

Gunther's mind is a concrete place, and there are often no places for abstractions and contingencies. He concerns himself with truth, with what is real. He has a fixation for the tactile pleasure of the world, and indeed what they’d just shared could be counted as one of them.

But feeling -- a philosopher would tell you it's abstract. That it doesn't exist except in our minds, but suddenly Gunther is not so sure. There is something achingly tactile in the way Erd confesses -- the way it rushes to his cheeks and hoods his eyes with shame. There is truth in the way he waits for rejection.

And there is truth in this, too; it's a rejection that will never come.

"I’m -- I'm shit, I was just,” Erd whispers frantically, wiping Gunther's stomach clean. "I'm just --I was just --"

Gunther does not speak. His mind is a concrete place, where only truths live. He cranes forward gently and presses his lips to Erd's again, savors them -- the warmth and softness of them as he molds to Gunther's touch, as he sags in relief. 

And in this way, they go forward. Together forward.


End file.
